Fraternal Friday: Will a Transgender aspirant ever be initiated?

And you will deal.

When I first thought about this topic for Fraternal Fridays, I thought it was going to be a long, eloquent, passionate defense of the transgender community. I thought I’d be citing all types of articles and real life people who should be members of a fraternity or sorority, but seemingly cannot because they are trans.

But why make a fetishistic statement of this blog entry by peppering it with pictures of trans folks who are hot right now? That’s not the point.

My point is that I am a cisgender fraternity man who will judge a transgender applicant on the same merits as any other applicant. A man is a man and I don’t care to check for the receipts.

Yes, it’s going to be a very hard road for transgender applicants. Transphobia is real out here and there will be many denials before the first yes. But I have faith in the undergraduates of today and tomorrow. It has always been the undergraduate chapters who have been on the leading edge of social justice issues in the Greek community. I don’t expect some old fogey alumni chapter to do the right thing. The undergrads can and the undergrads will.

To my trans folks… it might take a while, and it might not be you, but it will happen. Your bystanders are becoming your allies. We will get there.